What Men Need to Hear

Men should never fall prey to the criticism that they are masculinistic pigs if they believe that God has different roles for men and women. What do men need to know? Men need to know that God has a highest good in mind for men and women revealed in the Word. The feminist holds the roles of men and women up to the highest good of utility. God’s word holds women up the highest good of worship.

The issue is all about two little words, ought and can. There is the song that kids learn to sing, “I can do anything you can do better, I can do anything better than you.” Most of the time the roles of women debate revolves around the argument: If a woman can do anything a man can, then she ought to be allowed to. The problem is this that can does not mean ought. Christians should never take the abuse that we degrade women, because this is only in the eyes of utility, not the eyes of God’s word.

There is a philosophical problem with this thinking. It is entirely pragmatic. The difference between the Christian and the pragmatist is that the Christian acts on principle, but the pragmatist acts on what will show the most dividends. This is the kind of thinking that says, “the end justifies the means.” An action proves itself to be ethically right/true by the ability to perform an action expediently (e.g. preach a sermon, distribute some pieces of bread, counsel, etc).

Women have the physical ability to do all things that man can potentially do for the greater good of doing the work of the ministry. Nevertheless, they ought not. This is because ought-ness is an ethical issue. The Christian life is regulated by God’s Word. There are certain things that men and women ought not do, respectively. Men can shower just fine to the end of getting clean in a women’s locker room just as they could in a men’s. This would be more efficient for building purposes. The problem is evident. It is not right!

I am a true feminists. This means that I submit to the God given picture of a woman ought to be. What we want is for woman to be the most sublime perfection of what they were created to be. When I say that God regulates our lives, that mean that God has a certain picture of the right way of living. This defines what is human or dehumanizing.

Feminism is masculinism.

Whenever man ignores the word of God, he runs into the farce of traditionalistic legalism. In Mark chapter 7 Jesus chided the Pharisees for their excessive legislation to the detriment of one’s actual ability to do the will of God. If one does not seek God’s will for a given situation, one degrades the ability to be truly what God intends for him.

Ironically, pragmatism is not pragmatic at all if you consider that God’s will contradicts what the expedient meeting of needs says about the highestgood.

I say, feminists are masculnists because they implicitly claim the functions men ought to fulfill as better or higher goods than those which women must fulfill. Women aspiring to men’s roles because they are highergood for women, makes men better than women. If one calls God given functions to be less important for women than men, then women are less important. Feminists uphold the masculine role as better, thus they hold men to be better than women. Unless men and women embrace their God given roles as the highest good, they degrade their own role.

If being a woman is not as good as being a man, then women are not as good as men! The feminist idolizes men, not the actual highest good of human existence. The highest good comes from God’s word. Feminists are the ones doing the degrading in the eyes of revealed truth.

I have said nothing about the actual nature of the roles. This purely makes the argument for different regulation for different genders within the Christian community. This is important to the men of the church because they must embrace their roles, and facilitate women’s exercise of their gifts in the church. Men and women should never take the abuse when someone accuses of chauvinism if the actual case is that the individual simply believes what the Bible reveals.

Ben Rochester

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Published by Pastor Ben

I recieved my AA in religious studies, and BA in Biblical studies at Southern California Seminary, and my M.Div from Westminster Theological Seminary in California. My Theological convictions are that of the protestant reformation.
I am a minister in the PCA serving Pilgrim Presbyterian Church in El Cajon California.
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